2009-10 Gardner-Webb Wrestling Season in Review
March 24, 2010 | Wrestling
Boiling Springs, N.C. - The 2009-10 Gardner-Webb wrestling season was one full of highs and lows, consistency and inconsistency, devastating injuries, big wins and disappointing losses and history, as for the sixth straight year, at least one Bulldog wrestler wrapped up his season at the NCAA National Championships.
Redshirt-senior Dustin Porter wrapped up his stellar career at
Gardner-Webb in a familiar way, as the Ohio native won the East
Regional Championship and reached the NCAA Championships for the
fourth-straight year, the first Bulldog grappler to do that in
GWU's history.
As a team, the Bulldogs wrapped up its season with a second-place
finish at the 2010 NCAA East Regionals in Millersville, Pa.,
picking up 74.50 points and finishing behind only Liberty in the
team standings.
With a few holes to fill in the line up due to the departure of a
handful of Bulldogs from a year ago, head coach Richard Wince and
his staff looked to a number of newcomers and young grapplers to
make an impact immediately in the GWU line up.
The Bulldogs struggled out of the gates to start the season, as
Gardner-Webb loss its first six dual meet matches, all of which
came on the road at Chattanooga, at North Carolina, versus No. 20
Virginia, versus Virginia Tech, versus Utah Valley and at VMI.
However, during that same time span, Gardner-Webb faired well in a
number of open events, including a number of top-three finishes at
the 2009 Davidson Open and finishing 20th overall as a team at the
2009 Southern Scuffle in December.
Dustin Porter finished fifth in the Hokie Open, took second in the
N.C. State Open, won the heavyweight division at the Davidson Open
and placed fourth overall in the 285-pound weight class at the 2009
Southern Scuffle.
Porter's younger brother, Travis, took fourth-place at the
197-pound weight class at the N.C. State Open and then went on to
win the 197-pound division at the Davidson Open.
Other big wins at the 2009 Davidson Open included, Justin Guthrie
taking first-place at the 165-pound weight class, while
redshirt-freshman Ryan Medved placed first overall in the 149-pound
weight class. Junior Michael Slaughter, redshirt-freshman Richie
Spicel, senior David Pelsang and redshirt-junior Jonathan Velazquez
all took second-place in their respective weight classes, while
Alex Medved and Jason Porter both finished third overall at 157 and
184, respectively.
Gardner-Webb then turned things around in the new calendar year, as
the Bulldogs picked up a 20-20 tie against Franklin & Marshall
and a 31-23 win over Davidson to start 2010.
The Bulldogs dropped its next four dual bouts, falling to UNC
Greensboro, No. 15 Virginia Tech, N.C. State and Appalachian State,
yet bounced back to pick up back-to-back wins over Campbell, 22-15,
and Belmont Abbey, 36-15.
Riding a two-match winning streak into the 2010 East Regional
Duals, Gardner-Webb split in its two matches, falling to Liberty,
31-9, and then picking up its second win of the season over
Campbell, 45-9.
In its final home match of the season, Gardner-Webb struggled from
start to finish, as the Bulldogs fell to the Citadel, 29-9, and
then to NCAA Division II and nationally ranked powerhouse Newberry
College, 49-0.
However, the Bulldog grapplers responded with a 23-15 win over
Duquesne only three days later, yet fell in its final dual match of
the season to the Blue Devils of Duke University, 30-11, to finish
the season with a 5-14-1 dual match record.
The Bulldogs season as a whole concluded at the 2010 NCAA East
Regionals, as the Bulldogs were led by Dustin Porter's win at the
heavyweight division, while Slaughter and Velazquez each finished
second overall in their respective weight classes, to give GWU the
second-place team finish with 74.50 points for the meet.
Dustin Porter, who reached as high as No. 11 in the national
rankings in the heavyweight division led the Bulldogs with 33 wins
on the season and a team-high 13 pin fall victories.
Redshirt-freshman Alex Medved had 22 wins on the year, with six pin
fall wins, while his brother Ryan Medved earned 20 victories on the
season with a team-high eight major decision victories and two
technical fall wins on the year.
Gardner-Webb's Slaughter overcame early injury problems to record
16 wins on the season, his first as a Bulldog. Redshirt-freshman
Travis Porter and Velazquez each posted 15 wins on the season,
while Spicel, who missed most of the season with an injury,
recorded 14 wins.
While a handful of wrestlers in outgoing seniors Dustin Porter,
Pelsang, Evan Rhodes, Tim Burdine and Nick Roehrick will be missed,
the group, along with the coaching staff, has helped to lay a solid
foundation and have better prepared the Bulldogs that will be
returning next year for a strong season from start to finish with
hopes for even more success in 2010-11.
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| Final 2009-10 Season Results |
